Acton at noon in the intimate summer light of England
In writing the history of unfashionable families one is apt to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony.
BOWL LIKE HOLE
At first Mr Weedon came like any white man in a motor car, enquiring about sheep or goats or servants.
A vehicle swerving meteor-bright across the veld signalled a break in the school day as rows of children scuttled out to hide behind the corner, their fingers plugged into their nostrils with wonder and admiration. They examined the tracks of the car or craned their necks in turn to catch a glimpse of the visitor even though all white men looked exactly the same. Others exploited the break to find circuitous routes to the bank of squat ghanna bushes where they emptied their bowels and bladders. On such occasions they did not examine each other’s genitals. They peered through the scant foliage to admire the shiny vehicle from a safe distance. They brushed against the bushes, competing to see, so that the shrivelled little leaf-balls twisted and showered into dust. From this vantage point they would sit, pants down, for the entire visit while the visitor conducted his business from the magnificence of his car.
At an early age I discovered the advantage of curling up motionless in moments of confusion, a position which in further education I found to be foetal. On these topsy-turvy days I crept at great risk of being spotted to the kitchen which jutted out at a near ninety degrees of mud-brick wall from the school building. Under the narrow rectangular table I lay very still. The flutter inside subsided the instant I drew my knees up and became part of the arrangement of objects, shared in the solidity of the table and the cast-iron buckets full of water lined up on it. I could depend on Mamma being too absorbed by the event to notice me. Or if she did, she would not shout while the car squinted at the kitchen door.
So under the kitchen table I invariably found myself when vehicles arrived. And at first Mr Weedon arrived like any other white man enquiring about sheep or goats or servants.
As the time between sunrises and sunsets began to arrange itself into weeks and months and seasons, Mr Weedon’s arrivals became regular. Something to do with the tax year, at the end of March, Mamma explained. The children still ran out to whisper and admire from a distance, and I with a new knowledge of geography still crept under the kitchen table, but with the buckets of water was now swept along on the earth’s elliptical journey around the sun.
Mr Weedon spoke not one word of Afrikaans. For people who were born in England the g’s and r’s of the language were impossible, barbaric.
‘A gentleman, a true Englishman,’ Mamma said as she handed Father his best hat. For the Mercedes could be seen miles away, a shining disc spun in a cloud of dust. A week or so after the autumn equinox he arrived. He did not blow a horn like the uncouth Boers from the dorp. There was no horn in the back seat. Neither did he roll down a window to rest a forearm on the door. Perhaps the chrome was too hot even in autumn and he did not wish to scorch the blond hairs on his arm. With the help of the person who occupied the driver’s seat, Mr Weedon’s door was opened, and despite a light skirmish between the two men, he landed squarely on both feet. The cloud of dust produced by the car and the minor struggle subsided. So Mr Weedon puffed deeply on a thick cigar, producing a cloud of smoke. Mr Weedon loved clouds. Which may explain why his eyes roved about as he spoke, often to rest ponderously on a fleecy cloud above.
‘A true gentleman,’ Mamma whispered to herself from the kitchen window as he shook hands with Father, ‘these Boers could learn a few things from him.’
‘Well and how are you, how’s the wife?’ The English r’s slid along without the vibration of tongue against palate. Mamma’s asthma mentioned, he explained how his wife suffered with hers. And Cape Town so damp in winter she was forced to spend a hideous season in the Bahamas. Father tutted sympathetically. He would hate to spend several days away from home, let alone months.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Weedon, braiding his lapel with delicate fingers. How frail we all are. an uncertain world. even health cannot be bought. we must all march past as Death the Leveller makes his claim, and he looked up at a floating cloud in support of his theory of transience.
Father too held his chin slightly to the left, his goitre lifted as he scanned the sky. Possibly to avoid the cigar smoke, for he supported the school of thought that doubted whether God intended man to smoke; why else had he not provided him with a chimney?
Mr Weedon dropped his cigar and rubbed his palms together, which indicated that he was ready for the discussion held annually in the schoolroom. Father smiled, ‘Certainly,’ and tapped the black ledger already tucked under his arm. He rushed to open the door and another cloud of dust ensued as the man who opened doors tried to oust him. Everyone mercifully kept their balance and the man retreated sourly to lean against his Mercedes.
‘Good Heavens,’ whispered Mamma, ‘he’s picking his nose.’ Was she talking to me? Even in the topsy-turviness of the day I dared not say anything, ask who or where. Only the previous day I had been viciously dragged by the hair from under the table with threats of thrashings if ever I was found there again. It was not worth the risk. Fortunately she went on. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he were Coloured, from Cape Town I suppose, a play-white. one can never tell with Capetonians. Or perhaps a registered Coloured. Mr Weedon being a civilised man might not mind a brown person driving his car.’
So she knew that I was there, must have known all along, for I had been careful not to move. I turned my head towards the window and through the iron crossbars of the table saw in her two great buttocks the opposing worlds she occupied. The humiliation of the previous day still smarted; she was not to be trusted and I pursed my lips in disgust when she sat down, occupying her two worlds so fully.
‘Oom Klaas Dirkse has been off work again. You must take him an egg and a mug of milk, and no playing on the way.’
A brief silence, then she carried on, ‘And I’ve warned you not to speak Afrikaans to the children. They ought to understand English and it won’t hurt them to try. Your father and I managed and we all have to put up with things we don’t understand. Anyway, those Dirkse children have lice; you’re not to play with them.’
As if the Dirkse children would want to play with me. Kaatjie Dirkse may lower her head and draw up her thin shoulders, but her plaited horns would stand erect and quiver their contempt.
Oh how Mamma spoiled things. The space under the table grew into the vast open veld so that I pressed against the wall and bored my chin into clasped knees. Outside the shiny Capetonian leaned against his car; only Kaatjie Dirkse would have dared to slink past him with a single sullen glare. The murmur from the schoolroom rose and fell and I was glad, very glad, that Kaatjie’s horns crawled with lice.
‘Stay there, you’re not to hang over the lower door and gawp,’ Mamma hissed unnecessarily. She heard the shuffling towards the school door and, finding her hands empty, reached for the parts of our new milk separator. These she started to assemble, tentatively clicking the parts into place, then confidently, as if her fingertips drew strength from the magic machine. Its scarecrow arms flung resolutely apart, the assembled contraption waited for the milk that it would drive through the aluminium maze and so frighten into separation. I watched her pour the calf’s milk into the bowl and turn the handle viciously to drown the sound of the men’s shuffling conversation outside. Out of the left arm the startled thin bluish milk spurted, and seconds later yellow cream trickled confidently from the right.